The more sure of things we were, the more sharply our reality got checked

I do not know the way," Frodo Baggins, the unlikely hero of The Lord of the Rings, declares of his mission to destroy the fateful ring of J.R.R. Tolkien's imagination. In the cinematic epic that gave us the artistic exclamation point to 2003, Frodo spoke for many. This was surely the year in which we ambled hopefully, foolishly, gamely into the dark. Some would like to ascribe the many human failings of the year to willful deception. Bush lied! But cover-ups are not as common in human history as screw-ups. This was, rather, a year in which we all got it...